RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Abbot Abdias
of the Eliot Congregational Church, Roxbury, Mass., 1834. In 1839 he removed to Farmington, Me., and spent the remainder of his life there and in New York devoted to literary work and teaching. He wrote many story-books which had a wide circulation, such as the Young Christian series (4 vols.; new edition of the Young Christian, with life, New York, 1882), the Rollo Books (14 vols.) and Rollo's Tour in Europe (10 vols.), the Franconia Stories (10 vols.), Science for the Young (4 vols.).
ABBOTT, JUSTIN EDWARDS: Presbyterian; b. at Portsmouth, N. H., Dec. 25, 1853. He was educated at Dartmouth College (A.B., 1876) and Union Theological Seminary, from which he was graduated in 1879. He was ordained to the Congregational ministry in the following year, and after acting as stated supply at the Presbyterian church at Norwood, N. J., in 1881-82, went to India under the auspices of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Since that time he has been stationed at Bombay in the Maratha Mission, and has contributed a number of monographs to scientific periodicals on the epigraphy and numismatics of India, in addition to preparing religious works in Marathi for the use of Hindu converts.
ABBOTT, LYMAN: American Congregationalist; b. at Roxbury, Mass., Dec. 18, 1835. He was educated at New York University (B.A., 1853), and after practising law for a time was ordained a minister in the Congregational Church in 1860. He was pastor in Terre Haute, Ind., from 1860 to 1865, after which he held the pastorate of the New England Church, New York City, for four years, resigning to devote himself to literary work. In 1888 he succeeded Henry Ward Beecher as pastor of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, but resigned in 1898. He was secretary of the American Union Commission from 1865 to 1869, and later was a member of the New York Child Labor Committee and of the National Child Labor Committee. Among other societies, he is a member of the Bar Association of New York, New York State Historical Association, National Conference of Charities and Correction, Indian Rights Association, New York Association for the Blind, Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, The Religious Education Association, American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, American Institute of Sacred Literature, American Peace Society, New York State Conference of Religion, and the Universal Peace Union. His theological position is that of a Congregationalist of the Liberal Evangelical type. In addition to editing the " Literary Record " of Harper's Magazine, he edited The Illustrated Christian Weekly (1871-76) and since 1876 The Christian Union (with Henry Ward Beecher till 1881; name changed to The Outlook, 1893). He has written Jesus of Nazareth (New York, 1869); Old Testament Shadows of New Testament Truth (1870); Illustrated Commentary on the New Testament (New York, 1875); Dictionary of Religious Knowledge (Boston, 1876; in collaboration with T. J. Conant); How to Study the Bible (1877); In Aid of Faith (New
York, 1886); Evolution of Christianity (Boston. 1896); The Theology of an Evolutionist (1897); Christianity and Social Problems (1897); Life and Letters of Paul (1898); Problems of Life (New York, 1900); Life and Literature^ of the Ancient Hebrews (Boston, 1900); The Rights of Man (1901); Henry Ward Beecher (1903); The Other Room (New York, 1903); The Great Companion (1904); Christian Ministry (Boston, 1905); Personality of God (New York, 1905); and Industrial Problems (Philadelphia, 1905).
ABBOTT, THOMAS KINGSMILL: Church of Ireland, author and professor; b. at Dublin Mar. 26, 1829. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin (B.A., 1851; M.A., 1856; B.D., 1879), where he was elected fellow in 1854. From 1867 to 1872 he was professor of Moral Philosophy at Trinity College, of Biblical Greek from 1875 to 1888, and of Hebrew from 1879 to 1900, and has also been librarian of the College since 1887 He has been chairman of the Governors of Sir P. Dun's Hospital since 1897. In theology he is a Broad Churchman. His works include Sight and Touch, an Attempt to Disprove the Berkleyan Theory of Vision (Dublin, 1864); Par palimpsestorum Dublinensium (1880); Elements of Logic (1883); Evangeliorum versio Antihieronymiana (2 vols., 1884); Theory of the Tides (1888); Celtic Ornaments from the Book of Kelts (1892); Notes on St. Paul's Epistles (1892); Essays, Chiefly on the Original Texts of the Old and New Testaments (Edinburgh, 1897); Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin (Dublin, 1900); and Catalogue of Incunabula in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin (1905), in addition to Kant's Theory of Ethics, a translation (1873).
ABBREVIATORS : Officials of the papal chancery whose duty it is to prepare apostolic letters expedited through that office. The name is derived from the fact that part of their work consists in taking minutes of the petitions addressed to the Holy See and of the answers to be returned. Formerly they were divided into two classes, di parco maggiore and di parco minore, but the latter class has long been abolished. In the College of Abbreviators at the present time there are twelve clerics and seventeen laymen. Legislation of Feb. 13, 1904, defines their duties anew. The office dates from the early part of the fourteenth century, and has been filled by many distinguished prelates. In 1466 Paul II. abolished it because it had been corrupted, but it was restored by Sixtus IV in 1471. There is also an dbbreviatore di curia attached to the datary, who prepares minutes of papal letters addressed motu proprio to the entire Church.
John T. Creagh.
ABDIAS, ab'di-as: Legendary first bishop of Babylon. Under the title, De historia certaminis apostolici there exists a collection of myths, legends, and traditions relating to the lives and works of the apostles, and pretending to be the Latin translation of the Greek translation of the Hebrew work of Abdias. Neither the book nor its author was known to Eusebius or to Jerome, nor do they find mention before Ordericus Vitalis (12th cent.).
ATaeel Abelard